Goddess Tithe

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  But then he thought, I must bring her the white peonies.

  “Dragon’s teeth,” he said, his small voice spitting out the words. “Give me the rope then.”

  Bahurn, much to Munny’s surprise, handed the rope over without a murmur. Hastily Munny pulled apart Bahurn’s work and began to retie it. For a moment he considered Pich’s Knot . . . but no. He couldn’t take the risk. But his Cradle Hitch, that was a lucky knot, wasn’t it? It had saved Leonard’s life. Any knot that saved a man—even a condemned man—was a lucky knot tied by lucky hands.

  So Munny worked quickly, crossing and weaving until he’d formed a hitch around his small body. Leaving the extra length in Chuo-tuk’s and Saknu’s strong hands, he approached the rail once more, even as he had all those weeks ago when the devil-man was first dragged from the hold.

  This time, however, he looked down into a sea of mirror-glass.

  Munny had only ever seen a mirror once. It had been only a piece lying broken in the Chhayan alleys of Lunthea Maly. While making his way home from the harbor, where he spent his days running odd jobs for pennies, his attention had been caught by something so bright, so gleaming, he thought it must be a jewel. But when he stepped closer, it was not a jewel he saw but his own two eyes looking up at him from the ground.

  He had startled and hurried on his way, telling his mother all about the strange object when he reached home. She had smiled over her stitching, her fingers never pausing in their work, and said with a laugh, “You went looking for a jewel, but your eyes were the best and brightest jewels the mirror knew to show you!”

  Munny had thought this silly tosh and gone to sulk by the fire.

  But he thought of his mother’s words now as he climbed over the rail. His reflected self, so far down, mimicked his every move, even when he stuck out his tongue to prove that he was not scared. It looked foolish, even spiteful in the reflection, and Munny wished he could take it back.

  The smooth surface looked hard as stone, and the sunlight bounced off it blindingly. It was a perfect cover for anything that might lurk below. Risafeth herself might glide just inches beneath the surface, and how would Munny ever know?

  It was easier to walk down the hull as they lowered him than it had been that first time. The ship did not move even a hair’s breadth but remained perfectly still. Munny clambered silently down, his hands clinging to the rope, his feet guiding his progress, and inched himself toward the window. It was shut this time; but with the air so silent all around, no wind, no murmur of waves, Munny had only to put his face near the glass to hear every word inside.

  “What about your word to your men?” Sur Agung’s voice held more agitation than Munny had ever heard in it before. “You vowed to protect all those under your command. Yet you put them all at risk for the sake of this stranger. This devil.”

  Munny carefully tilted his face until he could see with one eye into the room. It was difficult to discern much in the shadows, so bright was the glare of the sun upon the glassy water behind him. Sur Agung was nothing more than a dark form, and Munny could not see the Captain at all.

  Instead his gaze fell upon Leonard sitting on the floor directly across the room, his back to the wall, his elbows resting on his knees. His head was bowed, so all Munny could see of his face was his puckered forehead. He could have no idea what was being said between Agung and the Captain, but by now he certainly must understand that his life was at stake.

  “I forget nothing,” the Captain said calmly. Though Munny could not see him, he easily envisioned the quiet lines of his face. “I remember my vows. And I will see the men safely to Lunthea Maly. All of them.”

  “How?” Sur Agung cried. “You know as well as I that we no longer sail the same sea. You saw the Lauté Dara . . . you saw what we know cannot exist, cannot be, cannot enter our own world. We might even now be dead men, lost in this hell! You might have already failed us.”

  “If that is so, I see no use in throwing the Fool overboard,” Captain replied. “If we’re in a hell, we’re in it together. And we’ll sail together to the end.”

  Sur Agung took a stormy pace backwards, blocking Munny’s view of Leonard. Now he could see the Captain’s narrow form, standing with his arms crossed. Behind him hung the gold-framed portrait Munny had glimpsed before. The light passing through the window glanced off the blade of an unsheathed knife lying on the Captain’s desk and reflected up to illuminate the portrait’s eyes. It seemed to Munny as though the strange-looking young woman gazed down upon the Captain. What she thought of him in that moment was anyone’s guess.

  “Risafeth will tear us apart,” Sur Agung said. “She knows her rights. For centuries now we have paid her tithe, and none who failed to do so have been seen again.”

  “An untrustworthy report at best, you must admit,” the Captain said, blinking slowly, like a cat not quite at doze, “if the only men who might verify the story were all lost.”

  “Some stories are true without witness,” Agung said. “Risafeth is one such story. You know as well as I, my Captain. I’ve sailed with you these many years, and I know you feel the heartbeat of this ocean more deeply than any three men alive. You know the truth of Risafeth. You know the goddess will have her due. The only question is this: Will she take him alone, or the rest of us along with him?”

  “None,” the Captain replied. “I do not fear Risafeth.”

  “But we do, and we are not you!” Agung replied, and he took two paces nearer the Captain, his hands up imploringly. Once more Munny could see the stowaway. Leonard’s head was up now, and he met Munny’s gaze right through the window.

  Leonard smiled. Though his brow remained furrowed, his mouth twisted into a lop-sided grin, and he winked broadly at Munny. Then he puffed out his cheeks and crossed his eyes.

  Munny gasped and swung from the window, pressing a hand to his mouth. Up above him Chuo-tuk, Bahurn, and the others lined the railing, and he could hear them hissing commands down to him, though he could not discern the words. He felt a tug at the rope and knew they meant for him to climb up and tell them what he had managed to hear.

  He grasped the rope and tugged back, bracing his feet on the hull. He took a step, pulled . . .

  And the Cradle Hitch—his lucky knot—came undone around him.

  For an instant he hung suspended. But his grip on the rope was not strong enough, and all his weight had been in the hitch itself. He felt that horrible moment of near weightlessness just before the pull of gravity clutched him in inevitable claws.

  With a thin cry, he fell.

  The ocean shattered into fragments of light and glass and water as he penetrated the surface, and darkness swept over his head.

  Brewing Storm

  COLD WRAPPED AROUND HIM, cold and gloom that felt strangely welcoming after the heat and the glare of the sun on the water above. Down below, the sun could not penetrate. Down below, all was calm, all was still. All was over.

  But Munny was not a boy to give up easily.

  Though his whole body wanted to freeze with shock and terror, his heart surged, insisting he move, insisting he act. So, though he did not wish to, he forced himself to open his eyes.

  He could see clearly down in the water, more clearly even than he could see above. This was almost the worst terror of all, almost enough to stop his surging heart.

  For surrounding him in the dark were bright eyes.

  Some were beautiful. Some were ugly. Some were enormous globes full of frozen dread. Some were small, like little lanterns, and gentle. But all watched him from a safe distance, curious, gathered beneath the hull of the Kulap Kanya.

  Munny nearly opened his mouth to scream. But instead a thought flashed across his mind, driving him to action, driving him to move his arms, to struggle for the distant surface:

  White peonies.

  Above him the sun stabbed spears of light through the darkness, like arms reaching down to him. Munny fought to grasp them, forgetting the few swimming lessons he’d had,
forgetting how to shape himself into a fish, to use his hands like fins. He clawed instead, as though he could tear away the resisting water as he had torn away the red veils of his nightmare. But he felt the endless darkness below stretch up and up to grab his ankles, to wrap around his knees, to pull him down into forever.

  The light on the surface broke.

  With a rush of white bubbles, something sank down beside Munny. And when the bubbles cleared, Munny saw the stowaway blinking and turning his head here and there, his arms moving uncertainly around him.

  So they’ve given him up to Risafeth at last, Munny thought without really thinking, for real thoughts could not form in the shadows of this ocean. They’ve given him up, and now we’re both lost.

  But Leonard, realizing as quickly as Munny had that he could see clearly even underwater, turned sharply, his hair sweeping back from his face. He saw Munny, and his eyes widened in surprise.

  He wasted no time, however, but shot out an arm and grabbed the boy. Only then did Munny realize that the clown held a rope in his other hand.

  Kicking like mad men, they shot for the surface, and the many hundreds of eyes watched them go without protest. They broke through with the tinkling shatter of glass, and shards of glass left cuts on Munny’s face and arms. But he clung to Leonard, who in turn clung to the rope. Distantly, Munny thought he heard shouts, and then more ropes were tossed down.

  “Here, tie this around you,” Leonard gasped. Munny did not understand, but his hands worked of their own accord, and he made a simple hitch that would scarcely hold a pound of flour. It did not matter, though, for his fists gripped like death, and he and the stowaway were soon pulled up from the water, using their feet to navigate the hull.

  Then they lay coughing, sputtering, and dripping water and pieces of glass upon the deck.

  “He did it! He did it!” were the first words Munny understood through the rattling drums that pounded in his brain. “The devil found him!”

  Suddenly, strong skinny arms were around Munny, and he was pulled up onto his knees to lean, still coughing, against a thin chest. “My boy! My boy!” wheezed a voice Munny did not at first recognize. For Tu Pich was too old to feel emotion; Tu Pich was too old to care or to cry.

  Munny could not think of that now. His mind whirled with a question that could not quite take coherent form but which left him dizzy and gasping.

  Why did she not take him? Why did she let us go?

  The commotion of voices all around, even the voice that could not be the old man’s, silenced suddenly as the shadow of the Captain fell across them. Munny, blinking and wiping water and blood from his eyes, looked up and saw the crowd parting to let the Captain through. He was tall and seemed as otherworldly as anything on this strange sea, with the sun shining behind him. Munny could not see his face.

  “Well done, Leonard the Fool,” the Captain said, addressing himself in Westerner to the stowaway, who sat near to Munny, shaking himself out and trying ineffectually to wring water from his ears. “Your foolishness has proven worthy this time. We thank you for a life restored.”

  Leonard shrugged, but his face was sharp as he glared up at the Captain. “Why did no one else go after him? Were they going to leave him to drown? Why did you give no orders?”

  Munny heard accusation in Leonard’s tone, and he shuddered, wondering how the Captain would respond. But the Captain merely inclined his head slightly, and his voice did not alter as he responded, still in Westerner, “This was your task and yours alone. And it may yet prove your own salvation.”

  Leonard’s brow wrinkled in confusion and frustration. But before he could speak again, the whole of the Kulap Kanya groaned and shifted suddenly under a sharp gale. All eyes on deck turned and saw the once-distant storm clouds suddenly bearing down upon them. Munny believed he saw roiling faces in those clouds, angry faces like gods ready to mete out judgment and retribution.

  “She is coming,” Captain Sunan said, gazing along with the others into the oncoming wrath. He whirled upon Leonard suddenly and hauled him to his feet, proving the great strength of his arm. “Get down into the hold,” he said. “Do not return to the deck unless Munny or I come for you. Go!”

  Leonard, staggering and casting terrified looks back over his shoulder at the storm, hastened for the hatch, and the sailors backed away and did not impede his progress. They were like dead men, their faces pale and lifeless in the shadow of what approached.

  “Riggers, to the tack lines!” Captain Sunan barked. “Reef the sails and head to wind!”

  Risafeth Vengeful

  THE DRIVING SHEET OF RAIN struck the glassy sea, and the glass shattered under its force, breaking into knife-capped waves. The eerie peace which had imprisoned the Kulap Kanya for weeks vanished in a moment, giving way to the animal fury of sea and sky and power greater than both.

  The ship groaned again and surged beneath Munny’s feet. Then rain pounded the deck and battered the sailors, powerful enough to knock many of them, even the brawniest, to their knees. Munny was flattened; and he shut his eyes, his arms over his head, and screamed inarticulately.

  A hand landed on his shoulder, pulled him upright. Munny clenched his teeth against his screams and looked up into the old man’s face, at the lines and crevices of his cheeks etched with water, like so many canyon rivers.

  “To the tack line!” the old man shouted, and his voice could scarcely be heard above the rain and the roaring wind that attacked the battened sails above. Slipping and sliding, Munny scrambled after the old man who, despite his age, sprang with unexpected agility up the forecastle stairs to the forward mast where the riggers struggled to secure the tack line and reef the sail.

  Though his small arms could scarcely add to the pull of the struggling sailors, Munny flung himself at the line and hauled with all his might to the rhythm of Odi the rigger’s bellowed commands. The sail shrieked and groaned, torn by the gale and rain, and Munny wondered that the Captain had not given orders to lower all sails entirely.

  The helmsman and four sailors at the wheel were hardly enough to pull the rudder in line against the beating waves. They clung to the spokes, their feet slipping across the deck, in imminent peril of the wind tearing them off into the hurtling sea. Even as the riggers followed the Captain’s command and reefed the sails into position, the Kulap Kanya refused to head to wind. Any moment, she would capsize.

  The Captain himself, his voice weirdly calm though it carried above the angriest roar of the wind, said, “Give it to me!” He took the helm, and by his own strength he did what five men could not. He turned the wheel, and the chains groaned and ground below the deck. The rudder shifted, and the ship turned into the wind so that the reefed sails were spared at the last, and the Kulap Kanya leveled out.

  The ocean bucked and churned. The sturdy vessel plunged down into deep troughs of dark sea. Munny lost his balance and fell, and only his death-grip on the tack line prevented him from sliding across the forecastle deck. Someone grabbed him from behind and put him back on his feet. He braced himself and pulled, pulled, pulled to keep the sail in place, to keep the line secure. The Big Storm had been nothing to this. It had been a spring shower, a slight disturbance. No storm Munny ever could face again would be the equal of this, with the snarling faces in the clouds above spitting their rage and their lightning down upon the tormented ocean.

  “We’re going to die!” screamed a voice that carried back to Munny’s ears. Chuo-tuk, hauling the line just in front of Munny, turned suddenly, gazing back over his shoulder, his eyes blinking against the rain, his mouth open and gasping for each breath.

  “Pull!” shouted the old man, and Odi’s bellow echoed him. “Pull!”

  But Chuo-tuk cried, “She must have her tithe!”

  He dropped the line and, falling to his hands and knees, scrambled across the deck, slipping and sliding, making for the forecastle hatch.

  “Chuo-tuk! Get back!” Tu Bahurn yelled from the darkness.

  But Chuo-tu
k’s gaze was fixed on the hatch. He muttered and babbled, only one real word spilling from his mouth. “Tithe! The tithe!”

  Just as his hands grasped the hatch, the Captain’s foot came down hard. Though the wind and the waves tossed the Kulap Kanya like a toy craft of sticks and leaves, the Captain stood firm, his body swaying with each heave, his heart beating in time with the ocean, with the ship, with the sky. He had left the wheel in the hands of the five straining sailors and walked across the shifting deck of his vessel to stand now above the addled Chuo-tuk.

  He carried a drawn sword in his hand.

  “Back to your station,” he said, and all those on the forecastle deck heard him, even those who struggled to discern Odi’s cries.

  Chuo-tuk stared up at his master then backed away on his hands and knees, scrabbling for purchase on the deck. “The tithe!” he shrieked again. “She must have it!”

  “To your station!” the Captain repeated; and Chuo-tuk obeyed, though tears may have wetted his face along with the pouring rain. The Captain remained at the hatch, leaving the wheel to the helmsman and his four sailors, who lashed it in place and struggled amongst them to keep the ship on course into the wind. Several of the men cast looks back to the hatch, their thoughts mirroring Chuo-tuk’s. But the Captain remained where he stood.

  Though no one could hear him say it, he ground through clenched teeth, “She’ll take none of mine this night. She’ll take none against his will!”

  The ocean opened.

  Like a pit into the very deeps of blackest anguish it opened, and out from that opening rose a face and a form such as had never been seen in mortal seas. A sinewy body, a neck glistening in the rain like a million jewels captured from the treasure chests of a thousand drowned vessels. And eyes like dead moons. Full of wrath. Full of vengeance.

  So Risafeth came at last.

  Pich’s Knot

  “PULL!”